Hanger steak, Argentina style

[Guy]

Henrik I gotta say I love and learn a lot from your post. Great job.

[Guy]

I swear I can't find meat like that here in NW Florida. I am going to have to go and bribe butchers. Like MH says you have to know your butcher.

[Guy]

Lot of fat scuse me Flavor.

[Henrik]

An upscale flank steak is a very accurate description I would say.

[Jerod Broussard]

Nice. Diaphragm goodies. This is Prime below. I almost tried one once. Reminded me of an up scale flank steak.

[Henrik]

I dont't know what's up with vBulletin, but it keeps inserting thumbnails all the time, even though I click on "large", "fullsize" et.c. VERY frustrating. Gaaaaahhh!!!

Looking forward to the forum upgrade. In the meantime, I posted the last image on my Dropbox, and added a link instead.

[Henrik]

Hi all,

thought I'd try something new. I've been reading up on grilling and different cultures, and liked what I read about how they grill meat in South Ameria. Wikipedia has a great article on the subject: Asado grilling.

To me, the essence of it is to let the meat's natural flavor come through, and that means using just one spice: salt. And PLENTY of it.

I chose a cut of meat that I've come to love from the first bite: Hanger steak, or Butcher steak as it is also known. The name (Butcher steak) aledgedly comes from the fact that the butcher kept it for him/her self. I couldn't agree more.

The butcher steak, or hanger steak:



It is two muscles, "mounted" in a v-shaped fashion, see pics. It is tender, and has lots of flavor.

The two muscles, laid out flat:



The hanger steak seen from above, here you see the tendon/membrane (the "point" of the V):



In South America they do a lot of direct grilling, but from what I gather they're using the 2 zone concept to the point.

I have a Big Green Egg, which has a horizontal heat deflector 3 or so inches beneath the grate, but I didn't want to use it this time, as I figured it would take too long to switch from indirect heat to direct heat. Instead I put an old brick in the bottom. I got the idea from other smart forum members here. Thanks!

The egg with a brick:



Anyhow, I applied a dry brine two days before, and right before cooking I unloaded a jar of flaked sea salt on the steak. Both inside and out.

The steak with PLENTY of salt:


I gave it 20-30 minutes on direct heat, then seared it. After removing it from the grill I wrapped it in aluminum foil for a 10 minute rest, together with a few large pieces of butter.

Sliced and served, with the mandatory Chimichurri of course. I made it the day before. Great steak sauce, I must say.

The steak, ready to serve (click here for full-size image):